Blog

I've been reading the blogs of my friends and family for a solid decade now, but I've only been following the blogs of strangers for a few years. (It used to strike me as kind of creepy.) At first I just followed Smitten Kitchen, the Pioneer Woman, and Simple Mom; but over the last year or two I've started reading so many faith blogs that I can't keep count. Of those, Mama Monk was the first to stand out to me. Micha Boyett consistently writes beautiful pieces (like this one, or this) that make me go, "You too? I thought I was the only one." I met her ever so briefly at the Festival of Faith and Writing last April, and I'm so honored that she asked me to guest post for her {This Sacred Everyday} series.

Basket-Weaving

At this point, I’m pretty sure there’s not a safe seat left. Every easy chair, couch cushion, and carpet has been peed on at one point or another. Despite my eco-friendly cleaning regimen of white vinegar & tea-tree oil, the scent of urine lingers – or I imagine it does – wafting up each time I settle into the blue cushion of our second hand sofa.

Tonight I load the laundry in again, acrid undies and leggings and rags, remnants of potty training tried and failed. If I don’t do the wash, she won’t have any pants to wear tomorrow. I measure the detergent, close the door, and sigh with self-pity.

The desert fathers sought out these kinds of menial tasks as a way of spiritual formation. I know this. I know they wove reeds into baskets, unwove them, wove them again. An object lesson. A reminder that the heart behind the work is more important than the task itself. I get that.

But when my husband is sweeping up glass and glitter from the shattered snow globe, and I am blotting the fishy smell out of a throw pillow, and the toddler is screaming, “please!” and the preschooler is crying because of the newly sewn stitches across her forehead, my introverted brain thinks the desert fathers were lucky; at least they got to practice their menial tasks in solitude.